Last week’s Earth Minute discussed COP-19, the UN Climate Talks in Warsaw Poland. Simone Lovera, Executive Director of Global Forest Coalition described the situation on the ground.
Category Archives: Actions / Protest
Earth Watch Interview: Simone Lovera of Global Forest Coalition on UN Climate Talks
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Pollution, UNFCCC, Warsaw/COP-19
The Warsaw, Poland Exhibit at the UN Climate Conference
On 21 November 2013 various non-governmental organizations walked out of the Warsaw climate talks. I am glad I have not attended for the last two years as I feel corporate interests have taken over the UN Climate Conference.
At this point I have no idea after the walk out if my photo exhibit was seized by UN security. I hope the photo exhibit was up long enough for the the High Level Ministers to view and see the reality of neoliberalism and climate chaos. They may have glanced, but unfortunately those with power did not really see or care. – Orin Langelle
(This photo was scheduled for the exhibit, but because of increased UN pressure on criticism of the UNFCCC, the photo was not shown.)
The exhibit included thirty photographs documenting Indigenous Peoples, organizations and social movements working for climate justice. The photographs were taken at events on six continents–from Bali, Indonesia to Espirito Santo, Brazil – Durban, South Africa and Chiapas, Mexico, to name a few.
All photographs by Orin Langelle. Courtesy Global Justice Ecology Project, Global Forest Coalition, and Langelle Photography.
Above: An Indigenous man with his mouth covered by a UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) gag during a protest at the UN climate talks in Bali, Indonesia. The gag symbolized their systematic and forceful exclusion from a UN meeting with the UNFCCC Executive Secretary they were invited to the day before. It also symbolized and their exclusion from the official negotiations even though it is their lands that were being targeted for climate mitigation schemes.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Indigenous Peoples, Photo Essays by Orin Langelle, Political Repression, Warsaw/COP-19
Climate Update #5: Global civil society walks out from deadlocked Warsaw climate talks
By Tetet Lauron, 21 November, 2013. Source: IBON International
With only two days to go until the 19th Conference of Parties wraps up, and growing increasingly disappointed that this year’s climate summit will not deliver meaningful climate action, around 800 members of global civil society walked out of the Warsaw Climate Conference.
Wearing white shirts with signs that said, ‘#cop19 polluters talk, we walk’, and ‘#volveremos, we will be back’, the mass walkout included social movements, grassroots organizations, trade unions, women, youth, indigenous groups, and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The statement read at the press conference immediately preceding the walkout said that civil society was voluntarily withdrawing from the Warsaw climate talks and would instead focus on mobilizing people to push governments to take leadership for serious climate action.
Ten days into the climate summit, sentiments are rife that the negotiations seem to have been excruciatingly slow, if not bogged down, on substantive issues such as agreeing on more ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, as well as the provision of climate finance for countries that are most vulnerable to and actually being impacted by extreme weather events such as the recent super typhoon Haiyan that ravaged the Philippines.
Civil society groups lament that what should have been a key moment to steer the world away from climate catastrophe has so far been off tangent in making big and bold decisions to solve the climate crisis. On the one hand, the Warsaw Climate Conference has seen the aggressive backtracking of developed countries such as Canada, Japan, the US, Australia and the EU on commitments to climate action and financing. Corporate sponsorship from big polluters, a high-level coal summit endorsed by Poland, the host government – these were signs not just of the lack of commitment to transition to a sustainable future, but also of the growing corporate influence over the UNFCCC, which was denounced by civil society. Continue reading
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, Warsaw/COP-19
Breaking: Civil society walks out of Warsaw climate talks – Says hope lies with building peoples’ power
NOTE: GJEP did not go to the UN Climate charade due to the takeover by corporate interests. We walked out in Durban, South Africa two years ago and never came back. Actually two people from GJEP had to be carried out of the Durban talks by UN security in protest of the exclusion of peoples’ voices from the negotiations.
To read GJEP’s analysis of the takeover of the UN process, download Part I of The Green Shock Doctrine, a paper in four parts, which we wrote as a means to help expose and examine the deeper issues behind the climate crisis and their links to many of the other crises we are facing.
–The GJEP Team
WARSAW, POLAND, November 21, 2013 – Today, one day before the planned conclusion of the Warsaw UN climate talks, hundreds of individuals from all continents representing social movements, trade unions and non-governmental organizations walked out of the UN climate conference in protest. [1]
“Polluters and corporations dominated this conference with their empty talk, so we walked out in protest. Polluters talk, we walk,” said Jagoda Munic, Chairperson of Friends of the Earth International.
“While people around the world are paying with their lives and livelihoods, and the risk of runaway climate change draws closer, we simply could not sit by this egregious inaction. Corporate profits should not come before peoples’ lives,” said Jagoda Munic.
“People and communities around the world who are already implementing climate-safe, local energy systems are the real climate leaders. Together, we must now apply political pressure so that our governments follow these leaders instead of the corporate polluters,” she added.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Energy, Events, Green Economy, Greenwashing, UNFCCC, Warsaw/COP-19
Climate Update #4: Tension high in Warsaw talks as G77+China walk out vs climate inaction
By Tetet Nera-Lauron, 21 November, 2013. Source: IBON International
Tensions and tempers run high with only two days left at the 19th Conference of Parties (COP 19) and tremendous pressure for the annual climate summit to deliver substantive outcomes.
Members of the G77+China, a group of 133 developing countries have walked out of the negotiations on ‘loss and damage’ at dawn today, amidst growing frustration at the intransigence of the EU, Australia, Canada, US and other developed countries on the issue of who should pay compensation for the effects of extreme climate events. The developed countries insist that this issue be addressed only after 2015.
An international mechanism on loss and damage will help countries address the impacts of extreme events—such as super typhoon Haiyan, which struck the Philippines almost two weeks ago—the enormity of which would make it difficult for them to adapt to.
Representatives from the G77+China bloc said that they have been very flexible in order to reach an acceptable outcome, and up until the wee hours of the morning, there was some progress in the negotiations. Australia then made a motion to put all the agreements in brackets, again putting everything on hold. At this point, the G77+China decided that it was time for the ministers attending the 19th Conference of Parties (COP 19) to make a political decision.
Mr. Marcin Korolec, Poland’s Environment Minister and COP 19 President, immediately sought an audience with key actors in the G77+China group, to help diffuse tensions and seek a productive way forward to the negotiations. Negotiations on loss and damage have resumed tonight, and is expected to make some progress after the impasse.
The high level segment of the internationalclimate talks has also gone full swing with two ministerial dialogues on the COP/CMP and on climate finance.
The Philippines’ Climate Change Minister Lucille Sering made an impassioned speech at the COP/CMP plenary session, stressing that almost two decades after the UN Climate Change talks began, there is still lack of progress in developing global actions against climate change.
“Every time we attend this conference, I am beginning to feel like we are negotiating on who is to live and who is to die. Would it be right for me to conclude that we failed miserably?” she said.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, speaking at the Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Finance, stressed on the need for ‘bolder’ targets to scale up climate finance and to ‘break down all barriers’ to achieve the large scale transformation necessary to keep below 2 degrees Celsius global temperature rise.
The Green Climate Fund, the operating entity of the UN Climate Convention, remains an empty shell, with very conservative pledges made by developed countries, but without actual commitments given towards its capitalization and operationalization.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, Warsaw/COP-19
IBON International COP19 Climate Update 2
By Tetet Nera-Lauron, 19 November, 2013. Source: IBON International
Activists drop a banner off the Polish Economy Ministry in Warsaw on Monday, Nov 18th, the opening day of the World Coal and Climate Summit. Photo: AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski
‘Coal power can be part of the solution to tackling global warming. If there’s a will, there’s a way.’
This was the message of UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres at today’s opening of the 2-day World Coal and Climate Summit. While stating that her presence at the Summit is ‘neither a tacit approval of coal use, nor a call for the immediate disappearance of coal’, Figueres enjoined the coal industry to ‘change rapidly and dramatically for everyone’s sake.’
The 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body tasked to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change, stated that the world will overshoot the internationally agreed goal to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius if energy demands are met in the same way as it had been in the past. The UNFCCC Chief outlined the parameters of this ‘paradigm shift’ for the coal industry: (a) close all existing subcritical plants; (b) implement safe carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) on all new plants; and (c) leave most existing reserves in the ground. Continue reading
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Coal, Corporate Globalization, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Warsaw/COP-19
IBON International Update from Warsaw Climate Conference
Climate, Number 1
Warsaw, November 18, 2013
The nineteenth meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP 19) is taking place inWarsaw, Poland, the 10th largest consumer of coal in the world, and producing 92% of its electricity from coal. According to many, must mark a ‘turning point’ for the international climate negotiations. Among the key outcomes expected from this meeting are on issues around mitigation, scaling up finance especially for adaptation, setting up an international mechanism toaddress loss and damage, and a plan for reaching a new legal agreement on climate action in 2015.
The COP 19 opened last week with the world witnessing the massive devastation wrought by super typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and with that, the impassioned appeal of Philippine Climate Change Commissioner Naderev Sano to ‘stop the madness’ of a few rich countries that continue to renege on their climate commitments amidst the worsening impacts of climate change. Sano also announced that he will go on voluntary fasting throughout the COP 19 meetings, and this has snowballed all over the world, with many organizations and individuals going on solidarity fasting for the climate.
But as the first week of the 19th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP18) drew to a close, fault lines between developed and developing countries are becoming clearer.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Natural Disasters, UNFCCC
This week’s Earth Watch on Indigenous Resistance to the Tar Sands
Global Justice Ecology Project teams up weekly with Pacifica’s Sojourner Truth show hosted by Margaret Prescod to cover important news about the environment. Every Tuesday we produce an “Earth Minute” and each Thursday an “Earth Watch” interview segment with an activist from the front lines of the battle to protect mother Earth.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Earth Radio, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, Mining, Oil, Tar Sands
